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Abstract
A report last week from the US National Academies' National Research Council raises concerns about animal biotechnology but finds little evidence of risk to animals, human beings, or the environment. The committee examined food safety, environmental issues, and animal welfare, in particular for animal products destined for human clinical interventions and for agriculture. [...]experience to date, notably outside the USA, in the public's knowledge of and reactions to genetically modified crops, including the destruction of test crops by activists, shows that reactions of the public about animal biotechnology are likely to be as extreme. Because risks, especially in agriculture and on the environment, remain unknown, a strict regulatory framework for the environment and for animal husbandry is urgently needed, as a first step, to help to assuage extreme reactions about animal biotechnology from the public.